


Belstaff

by Eligh



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Asexual!Sherlock, Other, Platonic Life Partners, Straight!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 08:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eligh/pseuds/Eligh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abandoned mental institutions, ragged jackets, and worries about abandonment; just another day in the life of Sherlock and John. Bromance doesn't even <i>begin</i> to cover it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belstaff

“The inevitable ravages of time,” Sherlock murmured, and John shot him a look.

They were standing in the foyer of one of the former Soviet Union’s more questionable ‘mental rehabilitation facilities.’ The building was a crumbling monument to those who’d slipped through the cracks of society and came complete with whispers of hauntings from the nearby town.  It was abandoned (in practice, if not currently; at the moment it was swarming with government agents and Russian police) and had been for years. Decrepit, the fading paint flaked from the utilitarian cement and smudgy deposits of calcium from hard water leaks left white trails down the walls. It was creepy and ominous, and (in John’s considered opinion) the perfect setting for the kidnapping/extortion/human trafficking/attempted homicide case Sherlock had just blasted open.

(Sometimes the wins were absolutely exhilarating, and this one had been brilliant. All the girls had survived and last night, John’d had a moment where he’d felt like James-bloody-Bond. He’d even worn a tuxedo. Just—lovely.)

“It’s an abandoned building, Sherlock,” John said with a touch of sarcasm, sticking his hands in the pockets of his thick parka and idly watching as the assembled _politsiya_ clambered around piles of rubble. “It’s bound to be a bit rough ‘round the edges. I don’t think the need for terrifying insane asylums in the current political climate is particularly high.”

But Sherlock didn’t appear to be listening, (nothing unusual, that) and was instead gazing off sullenly into the middle distance. John suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Trust Sherlock to get all moody about the end of a case. In an effort to snap him out of it, John elbowed him lightly in the side. Sherlock turned slowly to him, almost groggy in his movements and John sobered, rolling his lips together in a narrow, worried line. He reached out, the tips of his fingers brushing along the fraying edge of Sherlock’s heavy sleeve.

(The coat was the same one Sherlock’d always had; the same one John had followed blindly through the streets of London the first night they’d met, that Sherlock’d wrapped around his narrow shoulders like a suit of armour at the Inn at Baskerville, that he’d used to cover Irene, that John had seen surrounding Sherlock like an dark shroud in a pool of blood and horror at the base of St. Bart’s, that was now patched and mended—but recognizable—and still, after almost a year and a half, hung too loosely off Sherlock’s shoulders.)

“Are you all right?”

“I wasn’t talking about the building, John,” Sherlock muttered brusquely, arching one eyebrow (probably at the sheer density of John’s thought processes, and John bit back a sigh). “I was speaking regarding the patients—if one would use the term loosely—that resided here.”

“The patients?” John echoed lamely, turning away from Sherlock and casting his eyes around the sagging building. “What about them?”

“So many of them lived normal lives once upon a time,” Sherlock commented, offhanded but quiet, now idly shuffling his feet and inching toward a gaping entryway that might have once been the door to the patient residence hall. “They may have had families and friends and work and things they loved—and they ended up here.” He sounded positively morose, and John’s frown deepened.

“Sher—”

“I wonder how many died,” Sherlock interrupted tonelessly, “alone, here in this hell of a sanatorium.” He’d reached the maw of the entryway and stretched one pale hand out, his fingers just brushing against the cracking plaster. “I wonder how many had people who cared.”

John stared at him. “Mistreatment of the mentally unsound has nothing to do with the ravages of time,” he said softly. Behind him, one of the attending _politsiya_ scrabbled accidentally against a pile of rubble, mouth open to ask something of them; John shot him his best ‘Leave Us the Fuck Alone for a Minute’ look and the officer raised his hand in apology as he backed out the way he’d come. John turned his attention back toward Sherlock in time to catch the dark sweep of that coat's tails disappearing down the hall. He followed without a thought, though he did so slowly.

It took about ten minutes before he allowed himself to catch Sherlock up. He was beginning to have a sneaking suspicion about the cause of all this surprise angst, and wanted to give his prickly genius a moment to sort out what he was feeling.

When John finally came up behind him, Sherlock was standing in a narrow room (though ‘cell’ may perhaps be a more adequate descriptor) off the main hallway. He was frozen, staring off into space, his head dangling between his shoulder blades. With his drawn expression and his ragged coat, Sherlock looked almost at home amongst the scratched-in marks along the lower half of the walls, the twisted metal skeleton of a bedframe, and the collapsed bits of ceiling tile that’d fallen from above. ‘Almost’ being the key word.

John circled until they were face-to-face, and then touched Sherlock’s chin briefly to raise his head. Wide, haunted eyes met his only after an extended silence and so John huffed out a breath and pulled his idiot genius into a tight hug. Sherlock stiffened for the briefest of moments but then raised his arms and clung.

“You’re a great bloody idiot,” John murmured, his voice muffled into that hideous coat, and Sherlock huffed, his fingers digging into John’s sides.

“Hardly.”

Laughing softly, John pulled away and regarded his friend. “You really are. What makes you think you’d ever end up in a place like this?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You mean besides my sociopathic tendencies and the fact that I react inappropriately to the presence of serial killers and enjoy an occasional dirty fight and how half of Scotland Yard still thinks I’m a murderer and how you’re my only friend and Mycroft hates me and I’ll inevitably snap one day when my brain gets too insistent?” He’d started the statement off measured as usual but it ended on a note of hysteria. John levelled him his best unimpressed glare.

“Well, to start with, you’re not a sociopath, I’m not your only friend, _everyone_ enjoys the occasional dirty fight, and Mycroft doesn’t hate you. You are a bit... ah, _inappropriate_ sometimes, but that’s one of the reasons _I’m_ here, and I wouldn’t say that _half_ of the Yard thinks you’re deranged—maybe just a fourth. There are whole people there who don’t know you at all.” He smiled up at Sherlock, cupped the back of his neck reassuringly, and received a tentative twitch of the lips in return.

John let the moment settle before he ventured anything further; he needed to tread carefully, here. “You’re not going to snap.”

“You can’t know that. The line between genius and insanity—”

“—Is _narrow_ , trust me, I’ve heard it,” John interjected before Sherlock could finish the thought. “But I don’t think you’re crazy. I don’t think you’ll ever _be_ crazy. You’re the most… the most _real_ person I know. I’ve ever known.”

The silence dragged out, John gazing up at Sherlock’s downturned face, Sherlock pointedly not making eye contact in favour of scuffing his shoe against the edge of a collapsed, crumbling ceiling tile.

“You won’t always be here, though.” Sherlock sounded—not _lost_ , precisely, but perhaps a bit misplaced. “You’ll find some—another—girl, and you’ll—”

“Mary was different and you know it,” John said, tightening his fingers against Sherlock’s neck. “I doubt I’ll find anyone like her again.” He turned his hand and tugged lightly on the curls that brushed against his knuckles. “Don’t pretend you didn’t like her.”

“I did,” Sherlock admitted, and the (very) slight smile that twitched its way onto his face made John’s chest tighten painfully. His wife had been heading toward the end by the time Sherlock had resurfaced, but they’d made fast friends. Her last months had certainly been a trial for her doctors, what with Sherlock-the-Ever-Insufferable hovering haughtily for each of her chemotherapy treatments. But she’d loved it, loved him, and had accepted Sherlock’s madcap presence without a blink of her beautiful eye.

John ached for her sometimes like a missing limb, but Sherlock—helped, even when he didn’t realize he was helping.

“And since you know full well I won’t find another Mary,” John said softly, “you can forget all that rubbish about my leaving.” He stepped away, untangling his fingers from Sherlock’s curls only reluctantly and moving instead to straighten the lapels of his coat. There was a button missing near the top, though Sherlock’s scarf probably kept out enough of the cold for it not to matter. “How did Greg put it,” John muttered (mostly to himself). “Platonic life partners, wasn’t it?”

That got the reaction he was looking for, the exaggerated eye roll and exasperated huff of breath. “He was being sarcastic, John. The whole of the Yard think we’re shagging.”

John smoothed hands down the front of Sherlock’s coat. “For once I don’t think you’re being hyperbolic.” He was perfectly aware of how they looked right now, standing too close and touching too much. They looked like this at home, too, running the London streets and giving grudging reports to the officers at the Yard. They’d done this before the Fall; their closeness was nothing new, but the difference now was that John didn’t particularly care what everyone else thought. He was happy being straight to Sherlock’s asexual, thrilled that they could be so close and so comfortable with one another.

Besides, it was too much of an effort to correct the gossip, and he didn’t want— _couldn’t_ —deal with the possibility of losing Sherlock again, even in a small way.

“He may have been teasing,” John said, serious now as he looked back up at Sherlock, “but you and I both know how true it is.”

Sherlock stared at him for several long, contemplative moments before swallowing and dropping his eyes. “If I ever—”

“Then I’ll be there,” John affirmed, and Sherlock’s face relaxed.

“Not that I _need_ —” he stressed hastily after a beat of silence.

“Of course you don’t,” John agreed with a grin. Sherlock narrowed his eyes before ducking his head further and smiling. His hands fluttered up to lace fingers around the back of John’s shoulders. A pause, then he tightened his grip for a heartbeat, the sort of awkward hug that could only come from Sherlock.

“We should—” he sighed out after a moment. “The inspector will be waiting to talk to us.”

John groaned and stepped back, narrowly avoiding tripping over what appeared to be the remnants of a filing cabinet. “This is going to be another hour of me smiling and nodding while he talks too fast for me to catch a word, isn’t it?”

Sherlock snorted and led the way out of the cell, graceful, his tattered coat swishing dramatically behind him. “It is entirely your own failing that your Russian isn’t up to speed, John. You’ve no one to blame but yourself. I speak six languages fluently, you only need the desire to _learn_ …” he lectured on, his deep voice alternatingly chiding and arrogant.

Grinning at his retreating back, John jogged to catch up, falling into an easy stride at Sherlock’s shoulder and letting the lecture wash over him. Sherlock was already off the topic of John’s linguistic failings and was now currently bemoaning the abhorrent state of Moscow’s public transportation. John nodded, not really listening, and eyed a fraying hem at Sherlock’s elbow.

“I’ll bring it in when we get home,” Sherlock said suddenly, apropos of nothing. John blinked.

“What?”

“My coat, do keep up,” Sherlock sighed. “I’ve allowed it to fall into disrepair, it’s bothering you.” He sniffed disdainfully. “Sentiment.”

“It’s a very _you_ coat,” John said softly as they stepped back into the main foyer. There were several officers waiting for them out here, all looking varying degrees of annoyed (a look John knew very well). He stopped walking, settling into his bastardized version of parade rest that he’d developed over his years at Sherlock’s side, though Sherlock advanced another step further before he stopped too, glancing over his shoulder. John tilted his head. “ _You’re_ not fraying around the edges. It shouldn’t be, either.”

There was another beat of charged silence as they looked at one another—Sherlock’s eyes really _could_ speak volumes—before he spun and fired off something in rapid Russian that John didn’t catch but made the _politsiya_ sigh in aggravation.

He may not have understood Russian, but John certainly was fluent in Sherlock. He smiled at Sherlock’s black-clad back and contemplated local tailors as Sherlock paced the room, shouting something about incompetency. They’d have to be quiet about it; John didn’t want Mycroft getting wind of coat repair plans and attempting an ill-thought-out gesture to replace the thing.

John didn’t want it exchanged for something new. It was exceptional, dropped threads and missing buttons all. 


End file.
